The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most influential occupants of that position in US history. While countless vice-presidents were limited to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I believe it now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (including "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen leave his lair? That is a effective way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his previous salary during his time as military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
